


head in the clouds (but my gravity's centered)

by gettingby



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Agatha finds out, F/F, First Kiss, Getting Together, POV Agatha Wellbelove, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27168905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gettingby/pseuds/gettingby
Summary: Agatha Wellbelove moves to California. She finds love, herself, and maybe even forgiveness.Essentially, an entire fic that answers the question: why the heck does Simon still wear Agatha's lacrosse sweatshirt?
Relationships: Agatha Wellbelove & Simon Snow, Ginger/Agatha Wellbelove, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 18
Kudos: 61
Collections: Agatha Wellbelove fics





	head in the clouds (but my gravity's centered)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my Agatha/Ginger baby. Also I edited this like twenty times after posting bc I’m dumb and HTML is hard. in case you’re wondering why the images kept changing!!
> 
> thanks sexyann for beta :)

Mum’s sent me a text message. Usually, she waits for the twice-monthly FaceTime call to reach out to me. We don’t have an international texting plan and she doesn’t know how to use any other messaging apps, so we don’t speak except for during those calls.

It’s a photo of me, at the sixth year Winter Ball. I’m wearing a tight, long-sleeved dress. The fabric is that glittery kind, with shiny gold threads woven on black - it washes me out, makes me look deathly pale. My hair is down to my waist, loosely curled. I’m smiling without any teeth.

On my waist is a hand - Simon’s hand. Mum cropped the rest of him out. (I’m not sure whether to be annoyed or appreciative.)

My roommate Ginger glances at the phone over my shoulder, and gasps. “Agatha, you look _so_ fuckin’ hot.”

I accept the compliment because with Ginger, you know it’s genuine. She isn’t saying it because she wants something from me.

The night before this photo was taken, I didn’t sleep a wink. You can’t tell because I’m good with makeup and even though I didn’t like using magickal beauty techniques, I definitely hit my under-eye circles with **Maybe it’s Maybelline** in the morning.

I hadn’t slept well for the whole _week_ , really. Christmas was approaching, and Mum and Dad weren’t having their usual party. They were going to a destination wedding in Spain, and I hadn’t wanted to come along, so that meant for an entire week, it would just be me and Simon. Alone.

When I told Minty, she squealed. “My parents would _never_ ,” she said, and then launched into a funny story about getting caught snogging behind a bust of Marcus Aurelius at the British Museum. _“He didn’t have a car, and it was free - where else would we have gone?”_ I’d heard it before, but I let her tell it anyway.

I didn’t want to spend Christmas with Simon. Not because of sex or anything, but because it felt too grown up. The two of us, in an empty house together, even for a few days? The thought of it made me want to hop right on a train and never come back. I didn’t explain that to Minty because I didn’t think she’d really understand. Actually, I didn’t explain it to Minty because she _would_ understand, and then I’d have to face the truth about it all.

I tossed and turned every night that week, imagining a future with just me and Simon in a big country house with stables out back. I imagined it every night, thought about it circles until I’d exhausted myself and I was on the verge of tears. Then I’d promise myself, _Tomorrow. I’ll break up with him tomorrow._ But the world would be fresher and brighter come morning. I would eat breakfast with Simon, and he’d look so happy to see me, and I’d smile at him, because I just wanted things to be okay.

If I broke up with him, where would he go for Christmas? Where would he go at all? What would I do with myself? I didn’t have any friends at school, besides Simon and Penny. And for all of Penny’s talk of women supporting women, it was obvious where her loyalties lay.

So I stayed silent. I sat next to Simon at meals, and he smiled and went back to talking to Penny, and I stared out of the window and thought, _no, it’s okay. I’m okay._

And then we did spend Christmas together, and it was...fine. Normal. We watched _Doctor Who_ and played _Just Dance_ the whole time. We slept on different sides of the house and kissed maybe twice.

I’ve agonised enough over that time in my life, so I think I’m justified in not replying to this text from my mother. In fact, I have my finger over the button to delete the photo from my messages altogether.

But then I think of Ginger, and I don’t.

Ginger isn’t just my roommate, she’s my best friend in America. Maybe my best friend in general. Minty and I are close, but I think Ginger and I are closer, even though I’ve only known her for a few months. When we met we felt like we’d known each other forever.

We met at a fraternity party that I only went to because at least ten of the brothers had invited me, and I was kind of flattered since it was _exclusive_. (Once I showed up, it was so disgusting that I was actually offended that they had wanted me to come.)

The girls I’d come with quickly disappeared into corner sofas and cluttered bedrooms. I refused to sit down on anything, personally.

So I stood against the wall, nursing an alcoholic punch drink and trying to look unfriendly. Then Ginger appeared beside me. She complimented my electric blue eyeliner and told me that my aura was intriguing. Then, she asked me if I wanted to go to Shake Shack.

At the time I thought Ginger must have been incredibly drunk, because when the Uber dropped us off, she giggled and said, “Shit, I’m vegan.” I almost punched her right then and there.

Fortunately, there was a smoothie place next door. So I got the mushroom burger at Shake Shack that Ginger wouldn’t eat because _“they probably don’t have a vegan fryer,”_ and she got some green concoction, and we ate and talked. I learned everything about her almost right away. I learned that her mom is Thai and her dad is Brazilian, that she grew up in Portland but couldn’t wait to get away, and that she’s currently studying engineering but mostly trying to find herself. She talked so much that I didn’t even have to think up any lies. I just said, “I’m English,” and that was enough for her.

By this point, it was late afternoon, and she grabbed my hand and said, “Let’s go to the beach.” So we Ubered to the beach - really, the Ubers were adding up, but it wasn’t really a concern for me and it definitely wasn’t for her. (Her dad helped start Amazon or something. You can’t make these people up).

The beach wasn’t a beach like you expect it to be in the movies. We had to walk through the woods to get there, which was annoying in my strappy sandals. I followed Ginger and thought, _This is how I die. I ran away from magic just to be dismembered by a Normal in the woods._

That being said, even though I left my wand behind in England, I _do_ know how to take care of myself. You don’t survive being the Chosen One’s girlfriend without acquiring self-defense skills.

But Ginger didn’t try to murder me, and we both got there in one piece. The beach was beautiful - quiet, and emptier than I’d expected it to be. Some of the beachgoers were naked, and Ginger laughed at my shock. “You would _die_ if you went to the beaches in Brazil,” she said.

We kept our clothes on. I just took off my oversized denim jacket and set it under both of us like a blanket. It should have been awkward, spending that much time with someone I had just met, but Ginger didn’t run out of things to talk about. I like people like that, who just let you listen without expecting you to say anything. Unless they’re Penelope. Penelope doesn’t _let_ you say anything, either.

Ginger isn’t like anyone I’ve ever met before. She’s weird even by California-uni-student standards and she doesn’t try to hide it for a second. She has the kind of confidence an extremely strange person can only have if they’re gorgeous and grew up in a kumbaya place like Portland. Back home that sort of thing would have been swiftly bullied out of you.

For instance:

“Agatha, you’re so beautiful. But you have a blockage in your chakras.”

“What?”

She leaned over and put her hand over my heart, which meant that she put her hand on my boob. “There’s something bothering you that you haven’t given voice to.”

I thought, _you have no idea_.

We made sure to get home before sunset. When we parted ways, she pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket and held it up to my face so that it unlocked itself. Then she immediately added her number to my contacts.

“I’ll text you tomorrow,” she said firmly. “If you come over, I’ll unblock your chakras.”

You would think that I had enough of New Age bollocks when I left the World of Mages, but I was curious enough to show up to Ginger’s dorm room the next day.

It smelled like weed, which didn’t surprise me. Apparently it was actually sage - she was burning the oil in her vape. “I don’t put substances in my body,” she explained.

“Weren’t you drunk at the party?”

“Of course not.” She didn’t explain further, so I didn’t ask.

She didn’t unblock my chakras right away. We listened to some nice indie music and she told me about her family and friends whose pictures were taped to the wall. There was an abstract drawing above her headboard in reds and browns. “It’s a portrait of me,” she explained. “My psychic drew it in her own period blood.”

I felt like my mother when I politely responded, “Oh.”

“Alright,” she said. “It works better if the crystals are on your bare skin, but it’s okay if they’re not.” She pulled out a big wooden box and opened the lid, uncovering hundreds of glass trinkets. There was absolutely no magic in any of them.

I loved it.

I stripped down to my bra and pants and laid down on her twin bed. She blew fake sage smoke onto me.

“Breathe deeply.”

I did.

The crystals were warm against my skin as she laid them down, gently, one after the other. One over my heart, then a line down my stomach, and a line down each arm.

When she was done, she sat down at her desk. “Okay. Close your eyes.”

“Why? What happens next?”

“I’ll use the crystals to channel your chakras, so that I’ll know what you need to do to unblock your heart chakra.”

I rolled my eyes, but only with my eyes closed, so she didn’t see. It felt mean to make fun of her to her face.

I laid like that for a while, smelling the sage, listening to Ginger hum, and drifting in and out of sleep. (It was a free nap - I wasn’t going to complain.)

“Agatha,” she said eventually, startling me out of my half-asleep state. I opened my eyes to see that she was leaning over me like a worried nurse. Her palms were hovering over the crystal on my heart, but not touching it. “Why do _you_ think your heart chakra is blocked?”

What a motherfucking question.

“I don’t believe in love,” I answered carefully. Ginger nodded as if she knew this all along.

“But that’s a recent development, right? You were in a relationship for a long time.”

“I guess. Until my last year of school.”

“Mhmm.” She wrinkled her nose. She has a lot of freckles - tiny ones, dusting over her nose and cheeks. They’re only a little bit darker than her skin. I’d never seen freckles on someone that wasn’t white before.

“I sense an imbalance,” Ginger continued. “Different wants, different souls. A rift.”

“You could say that about _anyone’s_ ex. You’re gonna have to try harder than that.”

She cracked a smile. “It’s okay if you don’t believe in this stuff. A lot of people don’t.”

“Oh, thank god.” I giggled, and she sat down on the bed next to me and started laughing too.

I went through the box of crystals, asking her ridiculous questions about each of them. (“Ginger, you can’t tell me this one isn’t a buttplug.” “It’s not!” “Is an arsehole a chakra? Because this will _definitely_ block it.”)

But I was gentle when I made fun of her. I actually _didn’t_ want to hurt her feelings. She’s trusting. She believes in things. The world’s a dangerous place for people like that.

And maybe, as much as I wanted to become invisible, I’d also been...lonely. So I let her keep going. I let her talk and I answered her questions - actually answered, instead of being sarcastic. And she hung on to my words like they were the most fascinating thing she’d ever heard.

From that day on, we were inseparable. Now we meet every day for breakfast and walk to our first classes together - Intro Bio for me, Calc 3 for her. (They’re not even close to one another, but it’s nice not to feel alone in such a big crowd.)

I tell her about Simon eventually - obviously not the whole story, but the bits that are Normal-friendly. She hugs me for a long time afterwards. “That explains a lot, Agatha. No wonder your heart chakra is fucked.”

The night after we had that conversation, I think about our breakup, and I actually feel upset for the first time. I call Ginger first thing in the morning. If she got me into this mess, she’s going to bail me out.

“Social media cleanse is first on the list,” she says over a bowl of something that I _think_ is a rare South American seed, soaked in milk that isn’t milk.

“I don’t even use my social media. I mean, I post on Instagram like, once a week, but I don’t look at what anyone else posts.”

“It’s still there, in the back of your mind. You’re not truly free until you get rid of it.”

“Simon doesn’t have Instagram,” I point out. “He doesn’t even own a smartphone.”

“Well, he sounds very cleansed,” Ginger says approvingly.

I hand over my phone, but I make sure I’m looking over her shoulder. She through my Instagram feed. It’s mostly people I don’t even know in person - vloggers, celebrities, pets. Celebrity pets that vlog.

“This!” And Ginger taps on a post.

My eyes widen. I snatch the phone out of Ginger’s hand so I can convince myself I didn’t misread the caption.

I look up at Ginger, then back down at the phone. My mouth opens and closes, but I genuinely have nothing to say.

“I _told_ you that you need a social media cleanse,” Ginger crows.

I breathe in, out, in, out. And then we walk to class.

On the way, Ginger tries to convince me to unfollow Penny. I shrug. It doesn’t matter; Penny always magicks her way into my phone somehow. If I unfollowed her on Instagram, she might actually fly here to check on me.

When I come back to my room after a whole day of classes, I toss my backpack onto the bed and flop down next to it. My hair feels greasy against my face - America is so goddamn _humid_.

I can’t take it anymore, so I whip it into a bun, unbutton my jeans and slip under the covers.

I open Instagram again. Just to look at the photo one more time, without Ginger watching my reaction.

The photo is tinted yellow - from an overhead light at night, I assume. (Should’ve turned out the lights and gone with the flash. Cinema verite - it’s very in right now.) Penny’s face is too close and out of focus. And then - well. _Then._

I’m not homophobic, I swear. Honestly, sometimes I think that maybe I -- 

Anyway.

I duck under the sheets and scream into my pillow. At least this way I won’t throw my phone across the room.

I think about all the times I’d tried to explain something to Simon, but he didn’t care enough to understand me. All the times that he just saw through me like I was a pretty glass statue. How he couldn’t see me as anything more than his girlfriend, and how I nearly believed that I couldn’t be anything more either.

I hate him for wasting years of my life - all those years I spent ignoring my own wants, making myself smaller trying to be who everyone else wanted me to be. How much different would my life be if it hadn’t taken eighteen years for me to stand up for myself?

Would I be someone else, someone I actually liked, someone _happy_?

(Then my other, deeper fear is this: that none of it actually made a difference. That I’m never going to change. In every version of my life, I am this empty person who doesn’t know how to feel anything, who can’t love anything - and I’ll always be lost and alone, in all the ways that matter.)

I think that maybe Ginger did unblock a fucking chakra, because I go from feeling nothing to feeling angry _all the time_.

I never realised how much aggression I channelled into lacrosse growing up. I go to one club tryout and decide, _no fucking way_. Can Americans be posh? Because these Americans are trying, at least. Then I consider the other options: tennis, badminton, field hockey, rowing, soccer, running, powerlifting...Frisbee. Ultimate Frisbee.

I watch the YouTube videos they email us before tryouts, and I’m hooked.

I’m good at sport, even if no one ever gave a fuck about that. It was always “Baz Pitch this” and “Baz Pitch that” - he’s not even that good at football! The whole team was awful; that’s the only reason Coach Mac had him playing striker. Meanwhile, women’s lacrosse was _nationally competitive_. Did that mean that anyone came to watch us? Of course not. (Simon did, but only if Baz wasn’t playing.)

People do come to watch Ultimate Frisbee. Mostly the friends of people on the team, but it’s club sports - it’s not serious. Ginger makes me some kind of power smoothie before every match. It’s sweet. (The action, not the smoothie. The smoothie is bitter and grainy. I wash it down with a bottle of Powerade, which drives her nuts.)

Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose - nobody cares. We pile into the seniors’ cars after matches and drive to the diner to gorge ourselves on pancakes and waffles and hash browns.

I like it. I like playing in the rain and getting covered in mud. It feels like I’m not myself, not even a person. Just a body full of raw power. Afterwards, I like showering away the sweat and dirt and sometimes the blood, concealing my bruises, and putting on makeup again. I like taking all of that _stuff_ that erupts and packing it back inside neatly.

I start to consider something new - that maybe there’s nothing _wrong_ with me at all. At least no more than there is with everyone else. (Less than Simon and Baz, clearly. But I don't want to delve into _that_ psychoanalysis, not when it’s finally someone else’s problem.) It’s oddly freeing to consider.

After a semester, Ginger and I rent an apartment together off campus. It’s perfect - Lucy, my Cavalier King Charles spaniel, has room to run around, Ginger has a kitchen for her health-food concoctions, and I have a _queen-sized bed_.

“I don’t know why you got such a big bed, Agatha. You don’t even have sex with anybody,” Ginger points out.

“I don’t fit on a bed unless I’m diagonal.”

“Stop bragging!” She drags me to the bathroom so she can compare our bodies - hers, short and curvy; mine, tall and thin. She frowns.

“It’s because my mom only ate hormone-free meat.”

“Your family eats _meat_?”

“Yes. It’s awful.”

Some things get easier - or at least better. I don’t feel numb all of the time anymore. I’m still not an emotional person, really - it’s anger with me, or nothing at all - but now when I can’t sleep because I’m thinking in circles, I knock on Ginger’s door and she lets me crawl into her bed.

One day she’s already at the door when I knock, and shoves me back into my room. “My bed can’t fit both of us, Agatha.”

I try not to feel rejected.

She flops onto my bed with a grin. “So, we’re just gonna sleep in yours.”

That means that she’s always around now - around when I have nightmares, too. I’m afraid that I’ll wake up one day and tell her everything - about magic, Watford, the Humdrum, and how my school’s headmaster tried to _murder_ me.

Honestly? She might not bat an eye.

In February, Ginger drives us to the mountains for her birthday. It’s warm in the daytime, but the nights are freezing, and we huddle together in a single sleeping bag stuffed with heating packs. The night is pitch black, and Ginger’s tent has a transparent vinyl roof, so we watch the stars until we fall asleep. She tells me about star signs. She says because it’s her birthday, Gemini is over us.

“I thought you were an Aquarius.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s my sun sign--”

She explains more about astrology than I ever cared to know. (It was a required class at Watford, but I hated it and forgot everything right after the final exam.)

She tells me it’s so obvious that I’m a Libra. I just roll my eyes.

The next morning, I rent a strong horse and a saddle for two at the stables. Ginger holds tight to my waist and screams in my ear as I ride up the mountain. It's noon by the time we get there. It takes Ginger half an hour to light the fire, and I’m so hungry by the time she cooks our vegan burgers that I regret not just lighting it with magic.

“It wouldn’t have taken so long if you didn’t keep psyching me out,” she whines.

“Every time, I’m convinced you’re not going to be able to do it.”

“My fire last night was incredible.”

“I believed in you a little more today because of that.” I roll on my side to face her and poke her in the stomach. She squeals and nearly drops her tongs into the fire. “Agatha!”

“When I first met you, I definitely didn’t expect that you’d be so rugged, Ginger,” I tease.

“You’re the rugged one, Agatha. You’re a lone ranger, riding a horse into the wilderness.”

“Riding’s considered delicate in my family’s circles. Or at least not rugged.”

“Agatha, you’re the least delicate person I know. I mean, you drink _caffeine_.”

I laugh, but she doesn’t. She’s still staring at me earnestly.

“Seriously, Agatha. You’re the toughest person I’ve ever met. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

We eat in silence after that. Ginger’s staring past the horizon, and finally, she says, “I had a dream last night. I think it might be a prophecy.”

“Prophecies are bullshit.”

“You don’t have proof of that,” Ginger says, and I roll my eyes and wish I could tell her that I have a decade’s worth of trauma as _proof_.

When she speaks again, her voice wavers. “Maybe not a prophecy. But a dream that I hope is one.”

She’s staring at me. She leans closer and then her hand is on top of mine. She’s coming towards me so slowly, giving me the chance to back out of this. She’s only a breath away when I snatch my hand back like I’ve been burned.

My heart’s pounding, and all I can think is no, no, no.

I stand up quickly, turning my back to her, and I stroke the horse’s face. I feed him some treats from my pocket until my breaths come slowly again.

Behind me, Ginger’s voice is flat as she says, “We should probably head back soon.”

I swallow. “Yeah. We ought to get back to the tent before dark.”

She turns her back to me in the sleeping bag that night, and my toes go numb.

Ginger and I don’t talk about what happened on the mountain, but that doesn’t mean that I never think about it. Sometimes I wonder, _what if_? But that’s not who I am. I’m never going to bind myself to someone like that again.

Maybe I want Ginger. Maybe I’ve always wanted her. I’m not clueless. I can look back at the progression of our friendship, our _relationship_ , and see all the signs. There were so many times that I could have pushed her away, or at least set a boundary, and instead I allowed her to come closer.

I know I’m attractive. Ginger and I have never talked about sexuality, but she hasn’t dated anyone in the time we’ve been friends. I didn’t really think about how my looks, my body, or my affection would affect her. I’m so used to being looked at that I hardly notice it anymore.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Ginger doesn’t just look at me. She sees me.

It scares me. And when I think about that, and the mountain, and what it means to love and be loved, everything goes blank and I’m as empty as I was when I first came to California.

Life goes on. Ginger and I sing along to Sufjan Stevens when we’re stuck on I-5. We take turns paying at Trader Joe’s. In the mornings, she walks Lucy; in the evenings, I do.

But there’s a tension that wasn’t there before. Like we’re frozen in time, I guess, and something has to give.

And then Ginger meets Josh.

A part of me is relieved. If she’s seeing someone else, things can finally go back to normal. I try not to confuse things by getting jealous, even though I’m not sure what amount of jealousy is normal when your best friend ditches a _music festival_ with you for a creepy cult retreat with her boyfriend. (Not even her boyfriend! Some weird unlabeled millennial thing.)

She wants me to come with her, and I have absolutely no desire to go. I _do_ have other friends. Good enough friends that they’d take a free ticket to Burning Lad and go with me in Ginger’s place, at least. But there’s something about Josh and his smirking tech-bro friends that makes me feel like I _have_ to be there. Call it protectiveness, though I refuse to cast Ginger as the damsel in distress.

And of _course_ that goes to shit, because apparently I can run away from magic, but magic won’t run away from me. I’m furious - because of the drugging and kidnapping and attempted murder, sure, but also because they _used_ Ginger. So I have to say I’m not upset when Simon lops off Josh’s dumb vampire head.

Seeing my friends is...better than I thought it would be. If you can even call them friends. My ex-boyfriend, his boyfriend, and his best friend who never liked me very much. They’re basically all I have to show for my eight years at Watford.

It’s not bad, though. I mean, part of it is probably the adrenaline of another narrow escape. Some kind of bonding through trauma that's been reactivated as a result of this misadventure. But the three of them also seem...older. Like against all odds, they’ve actually managed to mature. Baz uses **kiss it better** on me, for Merlin’s sake! The boy who glared jealous daggers at me for half my life. It’s surreal.

That’s not to say that things are good. Simon is a disaster. He was a glitter bomb when we were together. He refused to dwell on anything bad, feel anything that wasn’t in the moment, or worry about anything that he couldn’t run through with his sword, and he tried to spill that over me and everyone else all the time.

It makes me a _little_ happy to see that he’s so miserable now. Just because I was miserable for ages and he had absolutely no sympathy for that. But it’s also hard to look at him like this, because it’s like his light has burnt out. 

I want to tell him that he’s still Simon Snow and he’s going to be okay. That growing hurts, but it’s necessary. I think he (and Penny and Baz) believe that just because he’s miserable right now, he must have been better off before. That’s exactly the sort of shortsighted thinking I had to run away from.

Simon doesn’t talk to anybody now, even Baz. It’s actually painful to watch them. Like, more in an awkward way than a sad way. Penny’s sad about it, I think, but she was actually there to see what it was like between them before it became _this_ , I guess.

Ginger sleeps in her own bed, because it would be kind of weird to share a bed with everyone else around. I mean, now that they all realise gay people exist, it might send a message. I pull out the couch and Penny and Baz share it. The Normal they’ve scrounged up takes the armchair, and Simon sleeps on the floor because his wings are enormous and won’t fit anywhere else. They’re invisible, of course, but they still take up space. Simon _always_ takes up space.

I set my alarm for six-thirty so that I can get some alone time before everyone else wakes up and throws me into their chaos.

When it goes off, I think, _I’ve earned a fucking cigarette after all of this_. Once I’m outside I light one with magic and lean over the balcony railing, looking out at the street and the dumpsters. Quite a view, but you can kind of see the ocean on the horizon, at least.

Simon is, of course, awake. He rubs his face even redder as he slides open the balcony door and steps into the light.

He gets a whiff of my cigarette and grimaces. “You smoke too, Aggie?”

“Too?” I’m a little embarrassed to be caught. I’m beyond teenage rebellion, and it makes Ginger sad when I smoke. I stub out the cigarette and set it on our little plastic footstool.

“Baz smokes sometimes. Even though he’s fucking flammable.”

I open my mouth to tell Simon that his boyfriend’s always had a death wish, but I don’t think it’s productive. And I’m also not particularly interested in delving into whatever’s going on there. Penny seems like she’s elbows deep in it, and it’s not doing her any favours.

So instead I give Simon a once-over. Fresh haircut, at least, and the jeans he’s wearing actually _fit_. He’s gained a little too much weight, but it suits him. Or maybe I’ve just been conditioned to appreciate a well-fed Simon.

And he’s wearing a sweatshirt. I frown. “Isn’t that mine?”

“Um, yeah,” he says, blushing. “Sorry.”

It’s in much worse condition than it was when it belonged to me. The lavender colour has faded unevenly; there’s slits cut in the back, too, presumably for Simon’s wings. (You can still see that it says “Wellbelove” on it, though.) A couple of holes have been sewn up, probably with magic. Simon’s hugging himself - hugging the _sweatshirt_ \- like it’s some kind of security blanket.

“You know, I’m not going to ask for it back,” I say.

He relaxes at that - so imperceptibly you wouldn’t notice it, if he wasn’t your pseudo-sibling. (Maybe that dynamic would have weirded us out if either of us _had_ siblings, but with no frame of comparison, we dated anyway.)

Imagine feeling relieved that you get to keep a shitty sweatshirt. He’s still that little kid - always so angry and afraid, clinging on to whatever he’s told he can keep.

He clears his throat. “D’you have breakfast in there?”

“Second cupboard from the left. Top shelf, we’ve got cereal. Milk’s in the fridge - some type of it, at least.”

I wait until he’s settled back into his blankets with his cereal before slipping back into my room.

Ginger’s sitting on my bed. Her eyes and nose are red, and she’s hugging Lucy, who is wagging her tail and licking her as if nothing is wrong.

“Josh broke up with me,” Ginger says. “No - he didn’t even break up with me. He _ghosted_ me.”

“I’m so sorry, Ginger.”

I hate to lie to her. I mean, if the Normal sleeping in the living room can know about magic, why shouldn’t Ginger? It’s probably not the time. But I want to tell her. I _have_ to tell her.

“It’s okay.” She wipes the tears from her cheeks and shakes out her hair like a dog. “He was kind of annoying anyway.”

“You’re still allowed to be upset.”

“Thanks.” She crawls under the covers, and I join her, my friends be damned. They can think whatever they want to think.

She embraces me immediately, and Lucy shuffles down the bed to rest by our feet. I bury my face in her chest. Her hands are stroking my hair.

I’m not crying.

I’m being honest when I say that I haven’t cried in _ages_. The last time was when I had just seen Ebb get murdered in cold blood by our power-hungry headmaster. While I was running away so that I wouldn’t get murdered too. I mean, nothing really seemed worthy of tears after _that_.

Anyway, I haven’t cried in forever. Not that I’m crying now, technically. More just convulsing quietly while nothing comes out of my eyes.

“I heard you and Simon come in,” Ginger says. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I say, but I squeeze her tighter. 

I feel like I’m going to throw up. Like everything that I’ve tried to force down my whole life is coming back up.

The memory of Simon, in his too-big shirt and ratty trainers. Simon, clutching that red ball. Simon at my house, eyes wide as he took it all in, crying when Mum told him that he was allowed to eat his whole plate at Christmas dinner.

Me, the first time I was kidnapped. I was eleven.

I still remember the feeling of the ties against my wrists, the gag inside my mouth, and my pants sticking to my thighs because I wet them. (That’s the unglamourous part of being a damsel in distress that nobody talks about.)

It was only half an hour, really, but it felt longer than the week I just spent with the Next Blood.

It was the gag that scared me most.

It haunted my nightmares for years. I cried behind it until I thought I’d go hoarse, but no sound came out. All I wanted was to rip it off and beg for mercy. I wanted to tell the cave spirit that stole me that I’d tell it anything and give it everything if I could just _live_. I didn’t want to die. I was so, so afraid of dying.

And then Simon ran the cave spirit through with his sword. The tip came out of its chest, a few inches from my throat. Its muddy brown blood sprayed all over me.

While Simon cleaned up the corpse, Penny untied me, gave me new clothes, and cast the spells to heal me. I put one arm around Penny and the other around Simon and they helped me walk all the way back to Watford.

And they was _excited_ to do it. It was all just a game to them, an adventure.

That’s when I realised that the world was made up of two kinds of people: heroes and cowards. Simon and Penny were heroes. Me? I was a coward through and through.

But now I realise, I was also just a _kid_.

I can’t forgive Simon for what he put me through for all those years, even if it wasn’t his fault. Not yet. But maybe I can forgive myself.

And more than that - I _want_ to. I want to say, _None of it was your fault. You did what you needed to do to survive. You weren’t bad, or fake, or weak. You were just a person._

I’m still that _same_ person, no matter how hard I try to escape it.

Maybe who I am is the reason why I dated someone I didn’t love for three years, but it’s also the reason why he still wears my sweatshirt. And maybe who I am is why Ebb is dead today, but it’s also why we got out of this latest scrape alive. And it’s okay. It’s all just _okay_.

Maybe it’s alright to be who I am, all of it. To let myself feel things, and to want things, even if it’s only ever made things worse. My luck has got to change sometime.

That’s why I pull my head away from Ginger’s chest. Why I tuck her hair behind her ear, and I don’t panic when her eyes flutter shut. When I finally kiss her and she kisses me back, it doesn’t feel suffocating or scary or wrong. It feels _perfect_.

*

“Siiiimon. You better not be naked in there!” I lean against the doorknob and let the door swing open from my weight.

“What - of course not,” he says, flustered. “Are you - are you drunk?”

“Yup,” I say, smoothing my skirt down primly before taking a seat on his bed. It’s unmade and covered in dirty laundry. He’s twenty-one - how is he still so awful at taking care of himself?

“Wow. I didn’t think you’d ever get drunk again after the time with **Hair of the dog** \--”

“Yeah, we don’t need to talk about that,” I interrupt. “I’m celebrating! It’s my last night in London.”

My last night after a long semester away from San Diego. When Ginger and I decided to study abroad together, I begged her to choose France, or New Zealand, or Chile, but she insisted that she wanted to see where I’d grown up and meet my family.

I think Mum was hoping I’d bring home a boyfriend, or at the very least a romantic partner that was a mage. But she was mostly happy that I came home at _all_. (I’m happy that I did, too.) And she loves Ginger, even if she thinks she’s batty.

“I know! This is your goodbye party,” Simon says.

“Oh, bullshit. This is a New Year’s party.”

“Er - I mean, it’s both.”

I see a familiar flash of lavender buried under a pile of - are those used pants? I’m too drunk to care.

“Oh, it’s the jumper you stole from me,” I crow as I pull it out from the pants pile.

“Yeah,” Simon laughs, self-consciously. “Sorry about that. I think it just felt like belonging somewhere, you know. Like, wearing your last name made me part of a family.”

I drop the sweatshirt and stare at Simon.

“But it’s okay,” he says, confidently. “You can have it back. I’m okay.”

It was under a pile of _used pants_. If Simon thinks I want it back, he’s even thicker than I imagined.

Instead I grab the jumper that’s folded over his desk chair. It’s in much better shape.

“I’m going to take this other one, actually,” I say.

“Agatha - wait - that’s…”

“Turnabout’s fair play!” I shout, slamming the bedroom door behind me. I grab Ginger’s wrist and yank her out of the kitchen. (She’s been talking to Shepard all night. He might be the only person I know stranger than her.)

“ _Let’s go._ ”

We slip out of the apartment casually, then tumble down the stairs. We break into a run as soon as we leave the front door of the building.

When we kiss at midnight, it’s mostly just laughing against each other’s lips. Ginger’s shivering horribly, because she doesn’t own a proper coat. (Californians!)

I hand her the sweatshirt and she shakes it out. “Watford Football?”

“My magickal boarding school, remember? And football, like soccer.”

“What’s T. Pitch?”

“Oh, just put it on.”

She slips over her head, and once her curls reappear through the neck-hole, she pulls me into a kiss, a proper one this time.

“I love it. Thank you.”

And I say, “Ginger, you look _so hot_ in purple.”

**Author's Note:**

> say hi on [tumblr!](http://www.tumblr.com/blog/im-gettingby)


End file.
